ow," said
May. "I call it silly."

"I hope it'll be a boy," said Jenny. "I love boys. I think they're such
rogues."

"I'd rather it was a girl," said May.

"Perhaps it don't matter which after all," Jenny decided. "A boy would
be nicest, though, if you loved the man. Because you'd see him all over
again. Perhaps I'd rather have a girl. I expect she'd be more like me.
Poor kid!" she added to herself, meditating.

During April the subject was put on one side by mutual consent. There
was no immediate necessity for bother; but Jenny's self-consciousness
made her unwilling to wander any more over the towans, for all that the
weather was very blue and white, and the sheltered sand-drifts
pleasantly warm in the spring sun. Jenny, however, felt that every
rush-crowned ridge concealed an inquisitive head. She knew already how
curious the country people were, and that Old Man Veal was no exception.
Once she had walked through Trewinnard Churchtown near dusk, and had
been horribly aware of bobbing faces behind every curtained window,
faces that bobbed and peered and followed every movement and gesture of
her person.

Therefore May and Jenny determined to withdraw all opportunity from
inquisitiveness by exploring the high cliffs behind Bochyn. They climbed
up a steep road washed very bare by the sea wind, but pleasant enough
with its turfed hedges fluttering with the cowslips that flourished in a
narrow streak of limestone. At the top the road ran near the cliff's
edge through gorse and heather and moorland scrub. They found a spot
where the cliff sloped less precipitous in a green declivity right down
to the sea. This slope was gay with sea-pinks and fragrant with white
sea-campion. Primroses patterned the turf, and already ferns were
uncrumpling their fronds. Below them the sea was spread like a peacock's
tail in every lustrous shade of blue and green. Half-way down they threw
themselves full length on the resilient cushions of grass and, bathed in
sunshine, listened to the perpetual screaming of the gulls and boom of
the waves in caverns round the coast.

"Not so dusty after all," said Jenny contentedly. "It's nice. I like it
here."

"Isn't it lovely and warm?" said May.

So they buzzed idly on with their sunlit gossip and drowsy commentaries,
until a bank of clouds overtook the sun and the water became leaden.
Jenny shivered.

"Somebody sitting on my grave," she said. "But it's nice here. Nicer
than anywhere we've